Spring 2018 Course Quick Guide

Spring Term 2018 is now open for booking!

We are delighted to open the booking period for the second term of our 20th anniversary year at the Poetry School. Feast your eyes on our forthcoming line-up of brilliant courses and workshops, and start planning your new year of poetry writing!

Remember that new students get 15% off all courses, just give us a call to get your discount! Concessions are available, and applications for bursaries – covering up to 75% of course costs – are now open.

See our Quick Guide of this term’s courses below.

ONE/TWO DAY WORKSHOPS (LONDON)

Face-to-face courses taking place over one or two full days in London.

White Noise with Ross Sutherland

A day of poetry inspired by randomness and uncertainty. We will try out tried and tested approaches, as well as devising some of our own, to generate new work from unlikely sources. Book Here.

Writing Carmen with Richard Scott 

A unique poetry-writing experience, including a private backstage tour and dress rehearsal seats at The Royal Opera House! Book Here.

Rules Were Made to be Broken with David Clarke

Free yourself from poetry’s list of “don’ts” to produce surprising, disobedient work and find out what happens if we break the rules. Book Here.

Confessional: Writing the Inside, Out with Rebecca Tamás

Think about what it means to write out of, and into, personal experience; how we might approach trauma, sexuality, gender, grief and heartbreak in our work. Book Here.

Quick to the Cut with Martha Sprackland

An intensive weekend course on reworking your poems – learn to kill, cut and relineate your darlings with a former Faber editor. Book Here.

Was zur Hölle? European Poetry Now! with SJ Fowler

A practice-focused weekend looking at what is happening in European poetry right now, plus an opportunity for participants to develop work for presentation at the 2018 European Poetry Festival. Book Here.

Powers of Syntax with Phillis Levin

Experiment with syntax in your poetry and learn how various techniques can subvert linearity, suspend time, increase expectation and surprise, and re-orient the reader’s experience. Book Here.

Writing on Trees with Laura Scott

As someone said about John Ashbery, ‘It takes a kind of courage to write simply about trees’. Learn to be brave and let trees simply be trees in your work. Book Here.

SHORT COURSES (LONDON)

Five- or ten-week courses held at our London classrooms in Lambeth. 

A Conversation with the Past: Romantics and Victorians with Tim Dooley

The second of a trio of courses designed to widen your repertoire – drawing on the work of poets from a range of cultures and traditions – and building your own body of creative work with an individual identity. Book Here.

Beyond the Self: The Persona Poem with Shazea Quraishi

Free your imagination by playing with the ‘I’ in your poems – assume identities, use myth and fairytale, and explore the poetry of witness, to investigate autobiography, appropriation and authenticity. Book Here.

“I’m out of time, I’m Out of F***ing Time!” – Writing from the Queer Archive with Jay Bernard

Explore history and archives in this multimedia course, and learn to write poems that ask a lot of questions and complicate narratives of lived experience, with perspectives on areas such as sex, sexuality, gender, race, class and disability. Book Here.

Controlled Panic: Poetry and Obsession with Abigail Parry

Investigate obsession and repetition as writing techniques and how poems can act as a means for tapping enduring fixations. Book Here.

FACE TO FACE – THREE TERM COURSES (LONDON)

Term two of our three-term courses, held over ten weekly sessions at our Lambeth classrooms. 

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Jack Underwood

For students breaking into publishing their work, thinking about their motives & direction, and after rigourous critiques of works-in-progress. Book Here.

Pamphlet/Portfolio with Wayne Holloway-Smith

The friendly push and crucial support you need to hone that pile of poems into a larger work and take your next steps in poetry. Book Here.

The Construction of the Poem with various tutors

Work with a range of top Poetry School tutors across 30 weeks & write and workshop poems across a range of different forms. Book Here.

Routes into Poetry with Tamar Yoseloff

A starter’s gun of a course, examining the basics of rhyme, metre, form and structure, through writing exercises and workshops. Book Here.

Poem, Prompt, Pick & Mix with Jacqueline Saphra

An intermediate course for those looking to develop their writing and style through experimentation, play and close reading. Book Here.

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Sasha Dugdale

Join Forward Prize-winning Sasha Dugdale for stimulating weekly workshops, rigourous critiques of your poems-in-progress and a development of your poetic craft. Book here.

Intermediate Poetry Workshop with David Crystal

Not just a step down from the above, but a supportive group for feedback, new ideas, writing to theme & experimenting with forms. Book Here.

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Special Guests 1 & 2 with Kathryn Maris

So popular, we’re running it twice! Book your place to develop your work with weekly workshops, with three sessions enhanced by special guest poets. Book Here for the Morning Group and Book Here for the Afternoon Group.

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber

A weekend workshop for those of us with busier weekdays. Join Ros for one full day a month to get feedback on poems and generate new ones. Book Here.

MANCHESTER

Our face-to-face short courses and workshops around the country. 

Digital Poetry with Maya Chowdhry

Drawing on visual poetic forms this course will explore how electronic literature can use, and expand, language to create digital forms, such as Hypertext and Data Poetry. Book Here.

The Poetry of Dissent with Adam Lowe

Manchester has a varied and colourful history of dissent; dig deep into this cultural archive of resistance to inspire new poetry. Book Here.

Saturday Sessions with Ann and Peter Sansom

Three new workshops from long-running favourites, Ann and Peter Sansom. Book for January, February and March.

EXETER

The Poetry of Rubbish with John Wedgwood Clarke

Discuss exemplary poetic responses to waste before developing our own through writing exercises and homework. By the end you should have a small group of gleaming, rubbish poems! Book Here.

BRISTOL

Letting Your Avant-Garde Down with Caleb Parkin

We are the avant-garde! This course is an invitation to innovate, explore and take risks with your writing. Book Here.

ONLINE

INTERACTIVE COURSES

Online ten-week courses featuring five assignments and a scheduled fortnightly live chat to feedback on your work.

All this World is Yours: Poetry Through the Lens of the Occult with MacGillivray

This online course looks at the centrality of language and poetic consciousness to the magician’s craft, and how occult knowledge and practice has long drawn poets to its flame, approaching poetry as an act of conjuration. Book Here.

Test Patterns: Poetry and Science with Tania Hershman

Did you find science baffling at school? Learn to apply the principles of the scientific method to your writing and peer into the world of science and scientists to gather inspiration for new poems. Book Here.

Retropoetics: Four Billion Years of Inspiration with Rebecca Watts

‘We don’t reproduce the past, we create it’ – Hilary Mantel. This course invites you to adventure away from personal experience and delve into the treasure chest of history. Book Here.

The Poetry of Climate Change with Carrie Etter

From extreme weather events to the disappearance of species, we are all witnesses to climate change. How can poetry respond to this ecological disaster and its far-reaching repercussions? Book Here.

More Life: Philosophy as Poetry with Will Harris

Nietzsche argued the role of philosophy was to provide ‘more life’. The same could be said of poetry: it gives a fullness to life in its creation of new ways of speaking, thinking, and looking, seeking to expand rather than simplify. Book Here.

Bending Form: An Exploration of Possibilities with Shazea Quraishi

Explore the possibilities of form as a way of freeing of the writing process. Book Here.

ONLINE INTERNATIONAL COURSES

Ten-weeks and five assignments but no live chats. Feedback is written and posted to the group making it more accessible to students based in international time-zones or with varying schedules. 

Each Thing’s a Thief: Memory, Theft and Tradition with Adam Crothers

Engage immersively with literary and extra-literary information, and recall, annotate, edit and personalise your poetic inheritances. Book Here.

At Risk: Going Somewhere Different in Poetry with Jennifer Wong

How can poetry speak to us if it does not take risks, say something bold and new, and make adventurous leaps with language and form? Book Here.

Was zur Hölle!? European Poetry Now (& Then) with SJ Fowler

Exploring constraint, concrete, visual, sound, performance and language poetry, this is a chance to gain access to poetic cultures and scenes almost completely hidden from British poets and readers. Book Here.

Now Hear This: Percussion, Tune and the Poetics of Hip Hop with Eric Berlin

Listen to some of the most fluently musical poets of today alongside their counterparts in hip hop, and identify crucial musical principals for your poetry. Book Here.

The Poetry of Survival with Clare Shaw

Consider poetry’s capacity to sustain, to heal – and to save. Search for poets who have given voice to the struggles many of us will, at some point, face. Book Here.

ONLINE FEEDBACK COURSES

Fortnightly Feedback with Victoria Kennefick

Upload poems of any shape or size once a fortnight and receive detailed feedback from your tutor and general advice from fellow students. Book Here.

ONLINE MASTERCLASS

Advanced online courses run over a longer twelve-week period featuring six assignments and in-depth discussion.

Saying Something Back: the Poetry of Grief with Kathryn Simmonds

An advanced online course investigating and mastering the elegy. Book Here.

ONLINE STUDIOS

Intensive three-week writing courses. Less emphasis on tutor feedback, more on inspiration.

Shadow of Violence Studio with Mark Pajak

Cause disquiet, increase tension and leave a shadow of violence on your reader that lingers long after the closing line. Book Here.

Queer Studio with Mary Jean Chan

How might we eschew a life built upon lies, secrets and silence? And how might a “queer” poetics free us of our emotional chains? Book Here.

Stanza Body Studio: Pleasures, Pains, and Sensory Poetics with Khairani Barokka

This course is for anyone inhabiting a body, with a desire to translate the felt world into poetry. Write poems that push the realm of bodily poetics both outward and further within. Book Here.

Haiku Rebellion Studio with Lynne Rees

Re-visit the most misunderstood of all the poetic forms and make the ordinary extraordinary. Book Here.